I woke this morning
and looked at my ring and I
smiled all of my smiles :)))))

The sun is shining
Bumbles bees like big full stops
Buzzing in the air

But these wasps are a
pest they want to attack me
So I got a bat

But I haven't used
it as yet,  I think they know
I'm ready to bite

Some of the chalets
have England flags upon roofs
Some have twinkled lights

Me and dean have had
such a relaxing time , we've
ate slepted watched tv

We've danced drank and hugged
lots of family , his dad
stayed with us until

Monday , then he flew
back to sunny Spain with a
cherished memory

We took time out to
recharge our batteries as
life just gets better

We bought new blinds to
make our Chalet feel homely
and a table cloth

It's beige with white spots
O it's so pretty I love
it..dinners look lush

We took our dogs for
a beach walk , the oceans is
windy gently soft

Trees so pretty , I
saw Jennifer the fairy
riding a wagtail

They were running so
fast on a field the daisies
giggled in the breeze

My daughter came down
last night to spend time with us
Tomorrow we shall

go for lunch next to
summer trees and a blue lake
filled with ducks and swans

But best of all I
get to make more memories
I feel like a bird

flying high in sky
as my heart and mind bind
as one big love heart :-)))))

Honeyed icing-sugar
sun melts the snow caps
on the mountains
hair and grates the tough
green, soft

In Caramel pastures,
In sunken hills,
Under the seaweed,
Cowslips grow,
With rubied spotted
Ladies crawling up blades,
And the bumbles rumbled
buzz, a continuous growl,
Sways the floating gold.

The dark spider darts
Spearing crumpled
Flies in its silken steel
Thread. Thread which sparkles
amid the Bronze knives 
which spear it too.

The Elephant of Everyday comes stomping through my door
roaring and tromping and crashing about
blowing his trumpety horn

the prowling Panther of Performance
from the closet slides into the room
and circles my bed, growling, as he passes my head
hideous goals he lets loose

the Snake of Selfishness and Self-Centered Living
slithers from under my bed
he slides up the frame and under my sheets
as he curls up and warms my feets

the Black Lion of Pride struts into the room
strong and boasting and loud
living with no help, providing, perfect
telling me how I'm not him

the Otter of Overwhelming Panic
slaps into my room, jabbering and fretting about
running into my desk and my chair and my walls
worrying and biting his ever shortening nails
trying to find his way out

the Shadow Lady strides into my room
eye contact trying to make
the envelope pushes, seduction gushes
objectification she offers me to take

first I try to kick and pry
the snake off of my legs
but he tighter clings and up my torso climbs
his scales piercing my sides

with a snake on my neck
I sit on my bed, my feet touching the ground
and kick and shout at the panther as he
around me continues to prowl

he slashes and bites at my feet and legs
cutting and gouging my flesh
the panther still fighting, I manage to rise
and focus on the Black Lion of Pride

he sees me coming a mile away
and talks me to my knees
I yell and scream 'till I am hoarse
and shake as I weep bitterly

as I kneel, below me runs
the otter, stammering anxiously
I chuckle with malice as he bumbles away
misery loves company

quickly I jump up, out of the way
of the Elephant of Everyday
I kick his foot as he continues to thrash
he does not notice, or even sway

I turn around and face to face
the Shadow Lady's eyes
back me into a corner as I
fail to look away, but feebly try

so on my knees I whimper and cry
as the Gorilla of Guilt comes in
his padded feet near, his thick body looms
as he raises his huge tight fist, to close the tomb

I deserve this I've fallen
I'm no use at all
I can't uphold myself
on whom can I call?

I'm ****** and broken
inside and out
I fight and lose
then I cry and shout

"Stag of Solace, come near to me
I fail at fighting, this is my plea
thrash these menaces, clean my heart
I want to feel near you, never to part"

immediately, a rumbling sound
came from the hall, increasingly loud
they looked at each other, anxiously
then watched the door, slowly backing away

the Stag of Solace smashed through the door
splintering, crushing, a wood shrapnel shower
through the door and into the roaring
Black Lion as, through the window he's rammed,
slashing and crying

strong, poised, graceful he stood
his sharp eyes narrowed, eyeing this zoo
slowly the animals backed away
into the darkness, for now, to stay

his fur was short and sleek and brown
he wore compassion, ivory peace his crown
he came to me, I could not look
he lifted my eyes, bade me come
his shadow, protection, I took

To me he whispered:
my child you strive, you fight on your own
you think you can do this, you can not alone
your sin will never separate you from me
I save you, I purify, I set you free

he nuzzled my forehead
my wounds went away
he spoke once again
this time to me and the fray

the day is coming when I will return
to get rid of the zoo, it will surely burn
for you no more wounds or tears or fear
those things that burden you, never again, will be near

look and wait, for when I come
I come to save and restore
it will be done

until then you will have
trouble when you run
but take heart, for I am near
I hear you, I answer, I have overcome

he nuzzled again and strolled to the door
turned and looked, and let loose a fierce roar
charging away, he powerfully ran
his echo in my head, "I will help you be a man"

and slowly I got up and began to dress
thinking upon the Stag and me
his sin filled, ugly, made beautiful mess

I will still, to my dismay
entertain this masquerading zoo
but the Stag is in and with me
all things he makes new

and I fight and lose and strive to this day
but because the Stag of Solace helps me
I shall never, not ever, be put to shame

I sit here on the Edge of Reality
Lonely, searching the Galaxy
People think I am losing my Sanity
Or my Mentality is something to not be entered

Everything seems bleak and hopeless
and my body is trying to pull my soul from lifelessness
When the world heals; my scars shall not
The world  covered in disdain and “grace”…
The saint like people are ignored by the famous
Cookie cutter everywhere, Originality is nowhere
Where everyone is money hungry
Where everyone is *** hungry
Where everyone is hungry
Two are fueled while the other is left in the dust
I’m not trying to make a fuss maybe some just

Trying to allow people to think, with their own mind
to see what they can find
to open their heart and be kind
With limited time
We are at a bind
How Can we see when we’re blind
So Tell me what you know about dreams
Tell me what you know about feeling something can’t even touch
Tell me what you know about reality something you can’t see
While the bumbles bees bee and the tree throws apples
When the Govern govern and then Reality is ****** into pan
And When people act like you’re Stan
When addiction isn’t a fan and you're
Trying to stop the Cars
But you’re being held back by bars
as the Cars fall off the Edge of Reality
you realize all the duality but its too late
Your head is being ripped off...fatality

Now when the World's Ablaze and you feel Sub-zero
Courage is their doing charades trying to show you their is more
So get up and grab the stars and nothing is stopping you
As more people get up and grab the stars left by you
So Don’t be the bad guy thats make fun of people that die
Be the person who can show the message of truth
Be your own person
The person who is not manipulated by things like the fox
as the Donkey and Elephant duke it out
for the final bout, The person who thinks of something higher than reality
With the People who sit there on the Edge Of Reality

+-

Vivid forget me nots feign sleep,
their tired eyes tinged pink.
The soap and chlorine
at Lyme Regis bay
doth stand to make me think

About the way the rushes grow
and what lurks amount the reeds,
what gently dazzles
behind closed doors
and what we doth concede.

Is the laurel leaf unfathomable?
Is nature that way too?
For I feel that I don't understand
what every body seems to.

The humbled bumbles rumbled buzz
Satin saints upon our door
We wonder what was here,  
And what was there before.

The streaming stained glass
waterfalls, were they always there?
The sickled moon stands amorous,
clotted clouds about his hair.

Stately sit the beaded stars
in a wash of sky,

And still I sit, Still I sit,
Sit and wonder why.

Prairie winds howling from the south, the entire southern plane a gaping maw issuing forth wide frozen tides in the air scorching the land. peering thru the open blotches of the windshield on the way home, headlights revealing the rolling billows of misty scintillating snow devouring the gravel road way, old raised green truck roars thru the drifts. Earlier, twilight. Freezing. Everything the wind touches, everything that blocks its path becomes still and solid and severely dense. Had a bubble bath before i went out. AB =Long Johns 7 mo's. outta the year. Cheeks barely exposed to the elements, cells begin to deteriorate instantly, the strong stolid ache appears seconds afterward, and spreads in my blood quickly, and doesn't stop till some minutes after i seek refuge in the truck. Taking an elk. old bull. my step dad bumbles the first shot and the beast runs down the *****. He shoots it again. Cuts the throat and eventually takes off the head. Draining Blood is steaming. Leave the entrails in the snowscaped pasture land. Chain the legs to the bale mover on the back of the truck and make for the shop a few miles away. There Fire rages in an old steel drum in the corner, burning wood blocks and black petroleum wax leftover from the pigs that blast out from the pipelines. Feeney's in my coffee mug. The heat radiates just enough to reach us in middle room but we still wear full coveralls against to stifle the endless cold. We hang the carcass by running a steel rod through its achilles tendons. Grandpa & Stepdad refer to a murdered family in Consort whose place was burned down, suspect the son was involved in a drug deal gone bad. (Cohen bros. come to mind. Real life in Alberta & BC seems a blend of Big Lebowski and No Country). Skinning the elk. Carving it up. Learning the different cuts of meat, where t-bones come from, tenderloin, round steak, sirloin. Cool. Mass more than a 100 lbs of meat for jerky making. Country cousins comin over the next few days to help with cutting it all up. Striking a balance between fine articulation and the art of laughing. Turns out Everyone respects poetry for the audience. Good god y'all.

It was most boastful of me to assume that I could be the one to fill your cup
to assume that no other flower could fulfill you in the same manner
who am I to assume that we don't look just as lovely in a vase
and who are you to compare a rose to a carnation?
one whose grace is affiliated with beauty itself
and another that bumbles clumsily along like that of a lost bee
in every flower pressed,
in every poem composed
I seem to grow more tired of describing this ephemeral love
I continue to saudade in pursuit of moiety
leaving myself in a state of perpetual hireath
but in full honesty, I don't mind you switching me out for rose here and then
though I can't help but ponder
if she holds the same warmth in your arms
as one does in mine
and as to whether or not I will always be a stand-in for the next lovely rose to come

-a blissfully ignorant stand-in, a carnation

He got on, I think, at the first stop
I hardly noticed him at first.
Another passenger, another journey
Another person trying to get on further in the world
But something caught my eye. Was it his looks?
Perhaps, he was handsome, yes
But the type of handsome in an antique
That must be handled and cared for in sterile fashion.

"Tickets please,"  belches the scratchy tannoy of the carriage
As a red faced man in a deep hue of navy bumbles along the aisle.
He presents him any papers on his person
And looks at me with a stupid grin
His old eyes of the deep trenches at sea, glisten
There’s still life in the old boy yet.
Impatience wins this round. His hands still fumble helplessly
Through the sheets; not frailed though, just tired.

Time passes, he daren't say a word
And looks outside, without a sound. Time doesn't worry him
It's treated him well. Or has it?
As he paws his ginger mane
The grey strands shine in the light
A paper sits unread, unloved beside him
Lights of distant towns blur past
As he stares, unflinching, into the distance.

Grunting and shrieking of rails let us know we're stopping
The muddy blue pools shimmer as he rises.
The blade from Cherryvalley assures us that yes,
Yes. This is Lisburn alright. Getting up, sniffing the air
Where nature is a predator, he heaves his dark blue tote bag
Over his shoulder with a grunt.
Roaming into the darkness of the late winter night
Climbing. Climbing. Gone.

I sometimes look into the windows of the 1802
at the lights; look at my reflection
Where is he now? Is he like a stray
a lone nocturnal animal, finding his way
Or did he give up? Did he finally reach his den?
And what will become of me? Time tells, I suppose
It always does. I ruffle my auburn hair
Oily, not greying. Scruff, not mane. Still tamed.

The Author,
Having said
What is to Say,
Submits the Text
And Steps Away...

What's to be Read
Or Heard
Or Seen
Is Said and Done.

Then Comes the Fun.

The Reader
Ambles In shuffling,
Struggles In fighting,
Bumbles In stumbling,
Forges In determining,
Skates In gliding,
Rides In on a horse named Fluency.


The Reader wears the Text:
Tries it on for size,
Shrugs before Self's Mirror,
Stretches,
Shrinks,
Dyes,
Preens,
Thinks s/he sees the Whole,
But cannot even see the back
For lack of some connection,
Then ambles off to share
The Text with others.

Later, at the Readers' Circle,
Each wearer of the Text,
Each Poem Creator/Holder
Whose individual Poems differ
After putting on the Text,
Compare.
And though they twirl and dance,
Though they stretch and pose,
Though they must adjust,
No one wears the Text
The Same.

Red river run
Sand bar island
Green mossy tree
Hang over me

Blue sky clear
Sweet rot breeze
Peeper frog chorus
Lying in the forest

Soft lichen touch
Purple petal peak
Fuzzy bee bumbles
Distant bridge rumbles

Bloop and blip
Sounds abound
Chirps and yips
And coffee sips

It's nice to be alone
To hear the sounds
See the sights
Avoid the fights

Muskrat Hollow
Coyote Creek
Hanging Tree
The place to be.

He falls out of his tardis
just like he usually does
he stumbles and bumbles
freaks out and crumbles

Time can mess you up
totally ***** you up
it can wind you up
to your spring does break

Matter and time
rhythm or rhyme
teller of yesterdays
speaker for tomorrows

He's a loveable chap
and rather amicable
but his history is dark
and a child of wars


By Christos Andreasa Kourtis aka NeonSolaris

“I appoint you an official member
Of the greatest group (not club, mind you,
For we are better than all that nonsense),”
He said with a proud sniffle, “My good sir,
You are now a Busy Bee of BV.”
He leaned in close to the wide-eyed new boy.
“That’s short for Bumbles Ville – our secret fort.”
He straightened his ratted baseball cap, “See,”
He said with a smack of gum. “It’s not ‘bout
Bees ‘t all.” At this the new boy giggled.
A secret! How clever! “But what’s it ‘bout?”
The little boy asked, his voice squeaking out.
They grabbed a paper scroll marked “OFFICIAL!”
                We keep all secrets
                We may take small bets—
“There’s more notes on that at the bottom of
The page, see, right next to our initials,
‘Cause we couldn’t agree at first, and Jim
Here didn’t know what a bet was, you know.”
He didn’t know, but nodded. Then, “Dinner,”
He said at once, scamp’ring down the tree limb.
“We didn’t tell him what we’s ‘bout,” Jim moaned,
“Took his dog, too.” He glumly bowed his head.

I never knew my father, but I see him pass in every window reflection. Collar turned to the wind, he bumbles towards the book store with a coffee shop upstairs. I'm entombed in literature and fellow hermits. We become non-existence for all moments but this; as we hunch over scalding cappuccinos, eyes darting to each other semi-covertly, for once hopeful of human contact.

I never knew my father. He died of lung cancer before memories bloomed, in the space between the womb and indoctrination. All traces of him are left in trinkets, soap-preserved hair fibres in a shaving mug, and ripples of gravitational waves. He tells me that I have a place, without ever saying a word. And, he never tells me off for smoking.

I never knew my father. He was a military man and belonged to the Salvation Army. I don't think we'd see eye-to-eye now, but perhaps he would have saved me from my artist's starvation; with my bleeding heart pouring pointlessly into each and every gutter. I would have walked with more of a stride than a fluster, and call out names to the streets, without ever caring for consequence.

I never knew my father, but I met him once. I met him in the caverns of mind, as I swung around with a flashlight; hoping to find meaning in meditation. He held my shoulders as I fell to sobs, as I told him I missed him, as I told him I was lost. To that he just smiled and said:

“You're already there.”

sleep this most and Spring to lie
with tired tress and awkward thigh
apart that bit where winter slept
but now where stock and petals kept

a garden small and fragile sleeps
a'tween the hull and meadows deep
tha' bumbles bri' wi' nettled buzz
an' blooms with light an' shocks o' fuzz

a little rill there constant speaks
of need to want for constant peaks
(as like the bee that tends to pistil
the water feels to drink of thistle)

and feel the full when sharply stuck
by root and stem of urgent pluck

The garden flourishes,
Fed with sunny smiles,
The flora watered only,
by the kiss of butterfly ,
The grass whines on relentlessly,moaning only, when beaten by the shears,
The strimmer strums and bumbles buzz,
For,underneath the ballustrade,
Especially positioned,
lay at peace.
The bones of mortals.
Fertilizing, the peaceful garden, hiding inside the cemetery.
Complete with pearly gates.
Blooming beautiful.
(c) Livvi

Tickles of the straw fingers,
it will be alright they say.
Wave of the centre wind,
the saint’s at rest on the air’s kisses.
Join us they exclaim.

The scarlet macaw on her acclaimed throne,
art of ranking colours,
colours of a warrior’s triumph.
Rejoice in her name.
Rejoice!
Rejoice!

Bush deer content with the sound of emptiness,
the wolfs an ancient myth.
Bumbles bees retreating from the flowers,
along the yellow brick road.

The sky will never shed a tear
Today.
Tomorrow.
Next week.
Next month.
Next year.
In life.



Gabriel meadow. You are filled with my prospective destiny.
God bless you.

Justine Louisy
Copyright ©Justine Louisy 2016
All Rights Reserved

Leaf pushes,
Bursts
Through
Fingertip-

Sun
Bending close
Whispers
Spring

As bee bumbles
Into shell-like
Ear,
Petalled.

Rooted to the
Spot
Awe-sruck

Once again
The fearful
Tremulous
Hum

I feel the shutter of my curtains,
Stare into the Madness,
Where curiosity and dissidence
lay side by side.

My bed quivers in the early mornings
Light,
Pausing only to Juxtapose the desolation of
my
Sanity.

The floorboards beneath my very feet
Tremble as my consciousness
lay siege to the rational.
As if a sadist has purged the inner
mechanisms
of my Rage.

The stars stand still,
perhaps a welcoming message to my
overwhelming question.
Do we wander the world transfixed on doom,
or see that goodness and glory penetrates the
deepest of trenches?

The ceiling fan bumbles it's absurd existence
into my frontal lobe,
its tense relationship with the air,
Massacring it's way along the roots
of my
liberty.
Perplexing the cause for which I
have lost my thoughts to,
And cultivating the seeds
of
my
MADNESS.

Fear and doubt flow directly through my veins freezing me into a chunk of solid ice,

Uncertainty forcefully drives a spike straight through my soft and thudding heart.

I want to speak but my tongue is sliced into pieces and fed right back down my throat.



The weight of isolation crushes my spirt flat against an endless sea of old concrete,

and true love and loyalty for my family and friends feels truly impossible to ever express.

Crude communication bumbles and kind fumbling gestures only push me away yet farther,

into a place distant as distant as my derelict father was to his motherless crying child.



Trickling thoughts whispers about the old familiar danger lurking within a lovely woman.

Repeated memories of abandonment burns fast as gunpowder inside my darkest hours,

and five stained cases became forever stuck in the lonesome cylinder left out in the rain to rust and was permanently welded shut.

During Trump's campaign we saw
How very low the man could stoop
When it came to insulting any
Individual person or group.

The Gold Star family Khan, for example,
Received a heap of Trumpian abuse
As Trump blasted the family with
Insults, childish but profuse.

But even when Trump makes an attempt
To say the right thing, he still bumbles.
His team can pass him the ball, but then
The clueless president still fumbles.

He can have General Kelly
Speak in his defense, but then
On the next opportunity,
He'll stick his foot in his mouth again.

From someone in Trump's position we
Expect much more finesse, but alas!
In the meantime all we can do
Is say to ourselves, "This, too, will pass."

(10-20-17) By Bob B

Shapes and perspectives
Form over the room
They dance all around
From an angle of gloom
Unobscured by the blinds
And the puppet stage screens
The art journeys across me
In skeleton scenes
And the messages written
Encoded in time
Are the buzzing brain bumbles
To my hornet mind

I recollect the whole thing as clearly as if I had awoke with the sun,
Dispensing with any alarm, fully awake and engaged.
I am on a gurney being wheeled slowly down a hospital hallway
(For it is clear to that workaday hustle and bustle
Is no longer of concern to me)
Which is all silence,
Save for the squeak and bump of my carriage’s wheels
As it crosses from tile to tile,
And the sheet which covers me is seemingly made of gauze,
For I can, as I pass by one to the next,
See clearly inside each of the rooms,
The tableaus being what you might expect in such a place:
A young man and small child
Fluttering about a mother and her newborn,
A middle-aged woman reading aloud
(But softly, almost mechanically)
To an ancient and clearly unheeding man,
Another woman, aged and frail to the point of being insubstantial,
Dabbing at her eyes with a frayed, damp tissue,
Exiting a room as an orderly closes the blinds.
At this point the scenes become incongruous, almost surreal,
As if another director has suddenly assumed control of the film;
There is a room where a Marlowe-esque priest,
All harlequin-outfitted and codpiece-clad,
Bumbles drunkenly about the room,
Banging his censer against the walls as he speaks in tongues.
But just as suddenly the settings become gentle, pastoral:
In one room there are no walls at all,
Only a quiet valley with dirt roads and small streams
And the sound, disembodied but palpable and oddly familiar,
Of bells tolling faintly and melodiously in the distance,
While in the next there is nothing save
A young woman with angels bending over her.
At this point, I have clearly reached my final destination,
And I expect to find a chilly and spartan space,
Harshly lit and sparsely furnished with metallic chairs and tables,
So I am caught unawares for what awaits through the doors:
Light, just light making everything below it a toy world.
The dream abruptly ends, as they are wont to do,
But it seems I found it oddly comforting,
And it is that which makes me so apprehensive.

my jumbled bumbles stumble forwards
I fumble, crumble, mumble at a loss for words
help me, I can't even utter two words
you are the culmination I want to walk towards

twice - nice, thrice, and then four - more more more
life is a dice roll, adore, adore, adore

I am the clumsy inept writer
Stringing iamb into iamb hoping to find out what I am
monitor glow and a news feed to keep me out of focus
poor routines and bad basics to make me nervous

So I fumble, stumble, and crumble. Stop.
I mumble and bumble in jumbles. Steady.
Pick it up: one word, two words, three, then forwards

the house smells like a melting wire

and
   outside

city
smoke, leaf–– kite

I lie by my window
an old god covered in age
once painted, now
white is my name

but it is suddenly so lovely

I watch my world grow
once clumsy babbling
it talks now endless

somewhere
     sun subsiding

and I am not rot

I am not rot

this is a whisper I will not let go

I run my stoney hand
on my stoney hand
my hand
the hand of an archeologist
uncovering time from time
and my hand
the trembling power of a painter
unsure fingers with a half-filled quill

I rewrite— strangely— verse after obsolete verse
red and blue and dawn on dust

glittery awakening-– heavy and sour
white sightless eyes on history focused

exit centuries
like lather through sink-– exit war and tomb-people
exit sunken empires where deities go to die
–– exit exit exit!

          open the window!

in a flood thick

awash this skin, porcelain and stone
awash tongue forgotten, awash pupil

an artefact arm
slowly mobile
a hand blooming to veil the light
from wet, blinking eyes

a rickshaw bumbles by
a van singing
even the quiet whistling of a
bicycle’s chain
it’s getting cold

my socks? where did— here they are

the house still smells like a melting wire
but Faizan said
that Saad said that
he is bringing pizza on his way home

and outside
grey-gold fades

slowly— strangely—
I am not rot

        a melting's quiet sniffs

I am not rot

Red apples hang next to green leaves,
black ants; slowly crawl in a continuous line,
yellow and brown bumbles hum around,
goats, Meh-eh-eh! Meh-eh-eh! in the pen.

Dewdrop jewels hang from leaf tips,
falling occasionally in the light breeze,
stainless steel glimmers in the sun,
as the blade bites into the apple's flesh.

Juice runs down lips and chin,
a sweet liquid flow perfuming her neck,
and continuing down between pert *******,
resulting in a quivering motion as it tickles.

Sticky sweet kisses, like apple cider,
walking, as hands and fingers knot together,
golden tansies stand alongside the orchard,
I pluck one and put it behind her ear.

Grass, mown short under bare feet,
a path toward the house, birdbath in front,
bluebirds preen, blue and rose beige feathers,
calling out a trilling chirp, background music.

A pair of front porch rocking chairs,
white wood, with brown wicker seats,
anticipate us, as the sun begins to set,
and crickets begin to sing the evening's song.

Grapes ripening in the sun and
the evening to sharpen my thirst,
farmhouse bread and milk churn
cheese,
these are the Summer things,

In the pastures cows cast shadows
that dance among the grass,

the trinket burbles as it bumbles along
to join with the river and rejoice in its
song,

these are the things that make me belong,

and wine.